Thursday, August 04, 2005

The spectacular and enriching experience that is blogcritics.org just celebrated a momentuous anniversary of sorts - 10,000,000 visitors - that's enough to start off a planet:)

I've personally benefited immensely from my association, and learnt from every visitor/blogcritic. It is an addictive experience to constantly refersh the site to track recent comments/posts. Contributions range across the sea of human knowledge.

On the occasion, perhaps it might be fun to compile a list of some of the best posts on Blogcritics from the beginning - I'm giving you a short list to get started, but please add posts you like (URLs/Titles or authors) below. Please try to make the links clickable, so you save the sterling editors some effort.

...why is there truly a need for the RIAA any more, given the existance of technology that permits and encourages the bypassing of the "middleman" organizations in the first place? .....As for the need for RIAA (and presumably record companies), there will always be a need for record companies - because they are the venture capital companies of the music business.

....this is not a reflection of talent but rather power given to these people by us through their being a point of attraction. We have invested certain positions in society with power. Actors, rock stars, television personalities, business leaders and politicians are designated as important through our acquiescence. If we did not respond they would have no actual impact.

The late Jim Carruthers made some funny contributions in the comments.

We all know how fantastic Freddy Vs Jason was, and we all know how unspeakably cack Aliens Vs Predator was, but let's be honest here. If it boils down to it, which it inevitably will sooner or later, what we really wanna be seeing is this sorta shit right here

There is a consequence to us all, as long as moderate mainstream Christians allow this mentality and abuse of their principles to go unchecked, and it is compounded by allowing a President to so closely align his office with a particular religion.

It's hard to believe such things happen, but as I said, this was London in the seventies and they did happen, and not just to me. But this particular thing, did happen to me. I always said if I wrote about it, nobody would believe me, which was fine with me. I didn't matter what anyone believed because Christ knows, my mother and grandmother knew, as they came screaming around the corner with a belt and a broom in their hand because Stevie had seen the whole thing go down and ran home to get them and tell them that I was being beaten up.

Duke: What’s really goin’ on, though, beyond the coolness and the slickness and the violence? I mean there could be an argument for "it's just an exercise in style and stylized mayhem"Eric Berlin: Get this... you're rooting for a criminal... and you're crushed by his demolitionDuke: That's it, I think, too. Its got a tragedy, and its about corruption. talks about the corruption of the American dream and the like much better than ScarfaceEric Berlin: It's like an analogy for the American Dream really -- massive consumerism, how empty the Dream is... or somethingDuke: Ha! Great minds think alike...Eric Berlin: Yeah -- I agree, Scarface shoots for the moon but doesn't make itEric Berlin: Goodfellas gets it all -- hits its mark exactly

The global war, it has already been found, is not a single-focus war, with pure military objectives. It requires covert action, psy-war approaches and social engineering, similar to the multi-lateral, international "alliance of civilizations" that arose post-World War II, and which was fostered by the global terror of the War itself

A long time ago, back before The Ramones could count to 4, before the Black Flag so proudly waved, before The Clash had enough rope, before X marked the spot and before the Sex Pistols backfired punk was knocking at the door. Now in 2005 "Punk" is just another genre in your local music emporium. A product to be bought and sold at the local mall.

This is one of the funny tricks of the passage of time; the further removed from history, the more it changes. Back in 1967 only the squares called anything "Haight-Ashbury". There were lots of scenes happening, thousands of scenes; some overlapped, some were isolated, some blossomed, some mutated, some broke down

What goes on in a teenage girl's mind when confronted with romantic books?

Books are like genies that can make frogs from a well become the owners of the oceans within the confines of the heart, if you'll pardon the mixed metaphors.

Books egged on my thirst for knowledge that was deliberately held back, they gave me the courage to stand by my beliefs, and helped me evolve into a person who believes that libraries and books are treasure troves that can counter the spread of religious or political intolerance.

To pick something from the acerbic Mr Barger is tricky - but worthy of reading

In the end, what was his profound insight as a writer? What new insight did he provide into human nature, or the nature of government and human relations? Other than (very good) cheap entertainment, what was his intellectual accomplishment?

I'm really running outta gas on this liberal thing. When I write a post nowadays, I feel like a guy opening a Yarmulke Shop in downtown Berlin in 1933. When I satirize a conservative on Blogcritics, I feel like I'm performing a Bris ceremony in the Nuremberg town square.